


macchiatos? in my thai restaurant? it's more likely than you think

by ceruleancats



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Humor, M/M, but we like to have fun here and tbh i feel like this fandom could use a lil bit of crack fic, don't worry they scare him off tho, elias is there because he can't not get involved in the drama, i just love writing Shenanigans y'all, kind of cracky ngl, not beta read we die like men, oh and the teen rating is because i'm physically incapable of not swearing in my fics, okay it is crack i'll tag it, takes place nebulously sometime after ep 100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22284922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleancats/pseuds/ceruleancats
Summary: The s3 Archives staff goes out for Thai food. Probably unsurprisingly, it's a (mostly) unmitigated disaster. Perish the thought Martin gets to eat his Pad See Ew in peace.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 41
Kudos: 195





	macchiatos? in my thai restaurant? it's more likely than you think

**Author's Note:**

> I went completely feral and wrote this fic in like two days. I did not intend for it to end with jonmartin. Somehow it now does. Jonny Sims and I are kindred spirits. 
> 
> Please leave a kudos/comment if you feel like it, also please excuse any inaccuracies about restaurants in Britain as I am (perhaps unfortunately) an American.

Martin liked to think he was a nice person, that he saw the best in people and tried to treat others the way he wanted to be treated, followed the golden rule to the letter. But God help him, they’d been at the local Thai place for less than five minutes, and Martin was, in the nicest way possible, ready to stab a bitch. 

He buried his face in his menu and tried to ignore the headache that already felt like his brain was an interior wall being smashed by several overeager 30-year-old men demoing a house on HGTV. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy going out with some of the Archives staff--he and Tim and Sasha had gone out for drinks or dinner every so often, back when...well, anyway, that had always been a good time. Maybe it was the clash of new personalities in the Archives, or just the larger number of people, or, probably most likely, a combination of the two, but Jesus Christ.

Martin peeked out from behind his menu shield to look around for a waiter. Thankfully, one was heading in their direction. He reluctantly tuned back into the table’s conversation.

“Green curry is obviously the best,” Tim was saying, his voice sharp with far more annoyance than any statement about Thai food would generally warrant. 

“Hah, as if,” Melanie shot back. “Like I said, Pad Thai or perish.”

“You all have no fucking taste,” Tim said loudly, casting a derisive look at Melanie and then the rest of the table for good measure.

Martin made desperate eye contact with the waiter, who had by now reached the table and was very professionally ignoring Tim and his outburst. 

“Hello, are you all ready to order?”

“Yes,” Martin said quickly, with full knowledge that if the waiter walked away the argument would pick up right where it had left off. “Could I get the, er, Pad See Ew with vegetables, please?” Pretty much no one in the Archives who’d ever read a Flesh statement ate meat at this point. It was a whole thing.

The waiter nodded and turned to the rest of the table, which had reluctantly quieted down. 

“I’ll have the Panang Curry, tofu, spice level 10,” said Basira. 

“Oh, are you sure?” asked the waiter, almost nervously. “I mean, sorry, just our spice levels are...really spicy.”

“Yeah, and? Level 10, please.” 

The rest of the table stared at her in awe for several seconds. Basira stared at the waiter. A literal drop of sweat ran down his face. 

Daisy broke the silence, cool and casual. “I’ll have what she’s having.”

“L-level 10 spice?” asked the waiter, looking more frazzled by the minute.

Daisy nodded once. The waiter opened his mouth, apparently thought better of it, and scribbled her order on his notepad. 

Tim and Melanie ordered Green Curry and Pad Thai, respectively, obviously, and narrowed their eyes at each other as they did so, but maturely refrained from further accosting each other over dish preference.

The waiter turned to Jon, who was somehow still scrutinizing his menu. Martin nudged him, and he practically jumped before noticing that it was his turn to order. “What? Oh, er, what do you recommend?” he asked the waiter.

“Personally, I think the Drunken Noodles are really good. I wouldn’t order the Hot Basil, because to be honest the chef is kind of terrible at making it. Also two years ago, I was in this restaurant late closing up, and you probably won’t believe me, but the weirdest thing happened--” 

“Oh wonderful I’ll have the Drunken Noodles,” Jon said rapidly, cutting him off ruthlessly. “Thank you very much, now I’m sure you have other customers to go help?”

“Right,” said the waiter, looking slightly dazed. He collected their menus and backed away from the table straight into another patron’s chair. 

“Nice going,” Tim said snidely, giving up glaring at Melanie to glare at Jon. “Going to traumatize some innocent waitstaff now?”

Martin jumped in before Jon could start his 17th argument of the day with Tim. “I’m sure it was an accident, Tim. And besides, he didn’t take the statement, so no harm done.”

Tim grunted in response but didn’t say anything more, which Martin was going to count as a major win. And miracle of miracles, Jon didn’t snipe back either. Instead, he violently shoved back his chair and announced calmly, “I’m going to go wash my hands after touching the menu.” 

Tim snorted. Jon scowled. "Menus have been scientifically proven to be dirtier than toilet seats. Enjoy being diseased.” Tim appeared shocked into silence by the sheer venom of that response, a truly magical phenomenon, and Jon disappeared into the restroom. 

“Go team!” said Melanie, cradling the knife from her silverware set like a newborn baby.

\--

A different waiter brought their food, which was probably a good thing. Like, Martin had covered for Jon about the aborted statement, but honestly there was probably about a 50% chance that it would come spilling back out the minute that waiter set foot near Jon again. 

Everyone dug in eagerly, which lessened the rather awkward silence that had fallen over the table since Jon’s dramatic exit to the bathroom and continued upon his return. Martin’s Pad See Ew was great, and after several bites he looked up to see how the rest of the table was enjoying their dishes. Everyone seemed to be similarly pleased by the food, except Daisy, whose face had gone rather red. As Martin watched, she grabbed surreptitiously for her glass of water and emptied it in a matter of seconds, looking pained. 

“Er, Daisy, are you okay?” he asked lightly.

Daisy’s head snapped up towards him. “I’m fine,” she said, visibly crying.

From beside her, Basira raised an eyebrow. “Hm. If you say so.” She took another bite, completely unaffected.

“I’m. Fine,” Daisy growled, through the tears that were now dripping into her curry. 

“Heh, funny, doesn’t really look like you’re fine,” said Tim, who was physically incapable of passing up on the chance to bully someone. 

Daisy blurred with sudden movement, and then there was an actual gun pointed at Tim. A fucking gun. In the middle of this goddamn Thai restaurant.

"OH MY GOD," Martin said calmly. "DAISY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" The primal urge to take cover under the table warred with the brilliant idea of slapping it out of her hands before the rest of the restaurant could notice.

“Jesus!” said Tim, jumping out of his seat and hiding behind Jon for cover. “What the actual fuck?” The rest of the table expressed their shock in a similar fashion, except for Basira, who just shrugged and kept eating her curry like this was business as usual. God help them, maybe it really was. 

“I said, I’m fine,” Daisy said slowly and icily, gun still trained towards Tim (and by extension, Jon).

Tim cowered behind Jon, who tried to duck underneath the table and instead managed to hit his head on it. 

“Right, yep, you’re fine, got it, message received,” said Tim, voice about an octave higher than normal.

“Great,” Daisy snarled, and promptly holstered her gun. In the back of his mind, Martin absently pondered the legal consequences if any of the restaurant staff or patrons had seen it. He made eye contact with Jon, who stared back at him looking shocked, confused, and slightly concussed. 

What the fuck, mouthed Jon. I don’t know, Martin mouthed back. This is fucking insane, mouthed Tim, still crouched behind Jon’s chair. 

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Melanie loudly from across the table. All three of them jumped a foot.

“Nothing!” said Tim cheerfully, a terrifying grimace plastered across his face. He returned to his seat and sat gingerly, eyeing Daisy and her resumed struggle to eat the curry.

“Alright,” Melanie said, equally cheerfully. “Then wanna hear about my new plan for how my plot to kill Elias in cold blood can still win? Consider: a trip wire across his office doorway, that connects to a poison dart hidden in the wall. Sneaky, right?” She glanced around the table, as if hoping for some kind of acknowledgement or possibly applause.

No one said anything. Basira, who was somehow already done with her curry, pulled out a book that looked suspiciously like a Leitner, planted her elbows firmly on the table, and started to read. 

“I skipped reading statements for this?” Jon muttered derisively under his breath, rubbing at his head where it had hit the table.

Melanie looked briefly disappointed by the lackluster response, but that soon morphed into an expression of shock and then fury as she stared incredulously at something over Martin’s shoulders.

Martin twisted around to see what on earth she was staring at, and made sudden, searingly uncomfortable eye contact with Elias Bouchard. Goddamnit, what the hell was he doing here?

“Goddamnit, what the hell is he doing here?” said Tim, angrily.

Elias made his way up to the table, smiling his usual shark grin. “Ah hello, what a coinci--”

“Don't you dare say this was a coincidence, you creepy, all-seeing bastard,” Melanie snarled, gripping her Pad Thai-covered fork so tightly Martin could see every tendon in her hand straining.

“Why, Melanie, I’m afraid it truly was one. You see, my husband is partial to Thai food--” 

“Your _HUSBAND_?” said everyone, in unison. 

“--and I always come here to pick some up for him whenever he drops by the office,” Elias continued, as if no one had spoken. “It’s simply the closest Thai restaurant to the Institute.”

“He said that my bi pride pin was against Institute policy and his ‘personal beliefs?’” Tim said under his breath, utterly bemused.

Melanie looked ready to launch herself across the table and assault Elias with her silverware, and Elias seemed to sense (or Know, or whatever) that it was probably his cue to exit. 

“Well, be seeing you all,” Elias said cheerily, though he was eyeing Melanie’s fork with visible trepidation. 

As Elias beat a hasty retreat, the table collectively relaxed. Melanie stabbed her fork back into her Pad Thai with perhaps more force than strictly necessary. Daisy continued to cry silently into her curry. Jon and Tim looked like they were still trying to wrap their minds around the fact that someone had voluntarily married Elias. Basira looked up from her book and blinked. “Oh, is he gone already?”

Martin stared contemplatively at the ceiling and wondered if this whole night was not, in fact, a fever dream.

\--

Martin was startled out of his musings a few minutes later by an earsplitting screech. Jon had leapt out of his chair and was pointing dramatically at the table near his plate, nearly shaking with terror and outrage.

“Jsk!jase;df&uw@olj*sd$ljk it-it’s a, a _spider_ ,” Jon sputtered.

“How did you just say that with your mouth?” asked Melanie. 

Martin leaned over to get a closer look at the spider in question. It was literally a speck of a thing, small enough that Martin had to squint to see it clearly. It was almost impressive that Jon had even noticed it. 

"Hey, little guy," he said, reaching over to let it crawl on his hand.

"Ew, gross, don't touch it," said Tim, looking more entertained than disgusted.

Martin ignored him, and the spider kept crawling. Right before it touched his hand though, there was a blur of motion from the other end of the table and suddenly the handle of a knife was protruding from the exact spot where the spider had been. Martin jerked back in horrified surprise.

"You're welcome," said Melanie to Jon, as Martin stared in shocked silence at the full two inches of knife buried in the wood. Despite the noisy rattle of dishes when the table was stabbed, and the shrillness of Jon's shriek, no one in the restaurant, waiters included, seemed to have noticed. Everyone else at their table shrugged and went back to eating (or in Basira’s case, reading), including Jon, who sat back down and gave Melanie a solemn nod of thanks like _stabbing_ a _table_ in the middle of a crowded restaurant was a perfectly reasonable and sane reaction to a harmless, miniscule spider. Martin went back to entertaining the increasingly plausible notion that this was a creatively terrible fever dream. The HGTV 30-somethings were pounding on his brain again, even more vigorously than before.

Thank god, or the Eye, or whatever evil power was watching over Martin, the rest of the meal passed without incident (other than Jon falling asleep into his Drunken Noodles, but honestly that didn’t even crack the top 10 weirdest places Jon had been found asleep in the Archives alone).

When the waiter came to deliver the check (again not the one who had taken their orders, which was probably good), Martin nudged Jon awake. 

“Oh damn, we forgot to ask for separate checks,” said Basira, finally closing the Leitner.

“Ah, no worries, I can cover it,” Martin said, grabbing the bill, feeling infinitely more generous now that no one was shrieking, arguing, or stabbing things. 

“I’ll Venmo you!” said Melanie, and the rest of the table voiced their intention to do the same, except Jon, who cleared his throat awkwardly, still looking half asleep. “I, er, I’m not sure what Venmo is, but I have some change.”

“Right, no worries,” said Martin, as Jon scrutinized the receipt to figure out the cost of his dish. 

As Martin’s phone pinged with Venmo notifications, Jon rummaged through his wallet and presented Martin with what was presumably the cost of his noodles, £12.57. Entirely in coins. Jon poured the handful of change into Martin’s hands like he was bestowing a royal gift upon him. Martin tried for a smile.

“Thanks…..Really got, uh, quite a coin collection there, huh?”

Jon looked at him like he was an idiot, a very familiar expression. “I’m trying to provide you with some pocket change so that next time, you truly can buy desperate statement givers a macchiato.” Ah. So maybe Jon was still sore about the less-than-stellar statement taking that had occurred in his absence.

“Right,” said Martin, trying and failing to stuff the coins into his pockets. “Of course. Naturally. For macchiatos.” 

Martin gave up on the coins, suddenly bolstered by a brilliantly risky idea. “Jon, speaking of macchiatos...would you like to, er, that is, I’d like to, um...can I take you out for coffee sometime?”

Jon stared at him, speechless. He stared at Jon, steadfast. The rest of the table stared at both of them back and forth, like they were watching the world’s most exciting silent tennis match.

“Well,” Jon said slowly, eyebrows furrowed, “I suppose we’re unlikely to have many more statement givers of that...caliber. And I wouldn’t want to have you carry those coins around for nothing…”

Martin felt his chest well up with joy, or possibly heartburn. His headache had magically vanished, and he felt light as air. Before he could respond, the entire table except Basira groaned in disappointment. 

“God fucking damn it,” said Tim, passing her a twenty pound note.

“If only it were two weeks later,” Melanie said mournfully, handing over more money. 

Daisy just sighed and relinquished her twenty in silent resignation. 

Basira smirked at them. “Told you. I’m an expert at these things.”

Martin wanted to feel offended, but he was too giddy from the honestly completely unexpected success. He ignored everyone else and focused on Jon, whose expression was warring between indignation and embarrassment. “Saturday work for you?”

Jon glared at the rest of the Archives staff, all of whom remained unrepentant, but his gaze softened when he looked back at Martin. He smiled that little half-smile he sometimes wore when he thought no one was looking. “Yes, Saturday is good.” 

Behind Jon, the waiter reappeared to collect the bill. “So, like I was saying, two years ago in this very restaurant--”


End file.
